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This topic will not lose relevance,
not in India at least. Since the topic is about the requirement of censor
boards for films and TV, I will not talk about the humiliation Salman Rushdie,
M.F.Hussain, Taslima Nasreen have gone through, something that Karl Marx did
not; imagine he was writing Das Kapital right in the middle of England. But
even this tolerant, indulgent England found The Rainbow objectionable for many
years. The novel that was later to be declared as a masterpiece was burnt in
public. Throughout history, we have witnessed this burning or killing live, poisoning
people or the then declared black sheep to death; it happened with Jesus,
Socrates, Joan of Arc; they were offered death because of reasons we know; they
these very bad apples were sanctified, accepted as philosopher, beatified or
what have you.
The film in question, it is sad
to know, which is being destroyed has not even been seen by those in
charge of censorship, I heard some teachers were doing the judgement. Strange
indeed! If one were to be sympathetic to the censor board, one would think this
kind of rejection is prompted more by fear than anything else. We are scared,
since a little more than twenty years, of certain words like burkha,
islam, terrorism, muslim, otherwise why would a lady-oriented film, which talks
about ‘secret fantasies and hidden desires', directed by Alankrita
Shrivastava, produced by Prakash Jha, appraised and led by Konkona Sen Sharma,
Ratna Pathak, Aahana Kumra Plabita Borthakur be rejected?
And if we are to let moral policing
on the loose, they would go about raping women, bring back sati daha, put a ban
on widow remarriage, keep on slapping women who smoke, drink, wear mini skirts
considering them as whores, and finally relegate all those women inside the prison
of mari-mère-maison, keep them as the
weaker sex for ever and ever. This moral policing has become so strong that
more women take part in it than men.
But Volatiare, years ago, has found
out a much more civilized way of looking at radical thinking or any thinking
with an alternative or opposite point of view; “I disapprove of what you say, but
I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
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ReplyDelete'[Moral policing] is an honorable man'.
ReplyDeleteFor as long as you are criticisng Krishna, it's clear you have not understood him; for as long as you are criticisng Rama, it's clear you have not understood him. When you have understood them, you will overcome the temptation of looking at their dark sides; you will realise that they do not have any dark sides, most willingly you will overlook all of that and quickly get into loving Rama and Krishna. It is not possible not to love them. What an ignorant I was you'd wonder and start breathing Rama and Krishna. It's as if you have suddenly acquired the ability to accept anything that happens on the stage as an acceptable art, a nritya with them, with Rama and Krishna.
In the same way, as long as you are advocating moral policing, you will not be able to understand freedom of expression, vaille que vaille; it is not possible. Disagreement would mean dislike, and this war will continue. A beef eater cannot dine with a brahmin, a lady wearing mini-skirt, a lady smoker cannot sit and exchange dialogues with a lady wearing saree and a non-smoker. We will continue to despise our well-defined vulgarity, porn will never be considered as art, although throughout the world, there are very few audiences who have 'never' viewed porn. This hypocrisy is considered a tribute to civilization.
When I am writing this, who am I... Yes I am a person who likes equilibrium and harmony in society and who thinks every form of expression as valid and justified from the creator's perspective. I do have the right to choose my own way, for example, I will not like ladies to smoke, neither will I approve of guys smoking because it is injurious to health; but never will I consider a lady smoker with a mini-skirt as an available whore; or a lady who says openly she hates wearing a sari, she just hates it to be an outcast. I will never condemn 'certain' artists to be peripheral, to be banished around the globe theater.
Moral policing will never learn from its mistakes; it has murdered Jesus, Socrates, Joan of Arc, it has spat on Budhha, it has told Tagore a vaishya when he was taking a class on transcendentalism, it has declared to kill Tasleema, Rushdie, MF Hussain; it has raped women of all ages, killed 'xx' chromosomes in the womb, threw widows on the pyre of their husbands, deprived widows of their wealth and their right to re-marry; still moral policing will not learn; '[Moral policing] is an honorable man', I agree.
So the war is here to stay. Let us accept it.